But I, too, have ropes around my neck. I have them to this day, pulling me this way and that, East and West, the nooses tightening, commanding, choose, choose. I buck. I snort. I whinny. I rear. I kick. Ropes, I do not choose between you. Lassoes, lariats, I choose neither of you, and both. Do you hear? I refuse to choose.
– Salman Rushdie: East, West
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Bringing a bit of India back home
In a recent piece of coursework, I was strangely asked to analyse a building near my University. As a literature student, I’ve always worked with texts; my head is always in a poem, play or a novel, yet this coursework was asking me to go out and explore, to carry out field work (how preposterous!). We had a choice of 5 buildings or so but we were allowed to look elsewhere, and, thinking about my experiences in India over the summer, I thought it would be interesting to examine Britain’s colonial past.
In Punjab, we visited a museum in Jallianwala Bagh which was a place made infamous by General Dyer who open-fired on a peaceful gathering in a large open space, killing many unarmed civilians. After this, anti-British sentiment became increasingly more pronounced, and the museum we visited there presented British Imperial rule in a largely negative light.
The bullet holes are still visible and attract many tourists.
‘The Martyr’s well’: Many women, men and children jumped to their deaths here to escape gunfire.
This got me thinking about the colonial relationship from the other perspective, and I was curious to see how India was represented as a colony in London.
Just as it happens, my university stands right opposite two very important reminders of colonialism – India House and Australia House – so I decided to walk to India House and see what kind of history could be read from this landmark. I feel no shame in reproducing my coursework here because the assessment was meant to take the form of a blog…so why not make real use of it? Click below for the pdf-document:
Without my trip to India I don’t think I would have enjoyed this coursework as much as I did. If I were learning about India House (or about India) from a textbook, without having first explored it and encountered the people there, I wouldn’t have had that direct involvement with the wider world around me. For this particular coursework, a solely theoretical approach would have made the process of learning much less engaging, and I’d doubt that what I had read about India House would really do justice to the experience of physically visiting it.
Gyanodaya, as I mentioned earlier, was all about seeing and feeling in order to really know anything. Travelling through India on a train gave me direct encounters with everyday people and their daily journeys, as well as the sights, smells and sounds of India. From this I have learnt that it is vital that emotional and subjective experiences should be made use of in the more traditional structures of academia.
In analysing India House my degree no longer seems like it is separate from my own personal history and experiences. My attitude to studying English Literature – a subject that I’ve always considered to be focused on minuscule detail and the ‘internal’ world of text and lofty ideas – has greatly been influenced by ‘College-on-Wheels’. Exploring what India meant to me prompted me to explore aspects of my home-city which I had taken for granted because encountered often. I now hope that the insights I’ve gained from my trip to India will continue to be made use of and help shape my academic work as it did here.
Odissi-Ballet fusion
I mentioned in my last post that dance was really important to the Delhi students and, gradually, it became important for me too through this cross-cultural experience. I also mentioned that I would post some images and videos later, so here they are!
The students of Delhi university organised a talent-show towards the end of the ‘College-on-Wheels’ trip in order to showcase different Indian dances for us Brits. The girl in the video and in the image on the left is my friend Roshnee performing an Odissi inspired dance (click here for an example – dancer starts at 1.17). Although a Delhite, her parents are originally from the state of Odisha (named Orissa previously), where this dance originates from. She gained admittance to Delhi University because of her advanced level of Odissi, much like how many US Institutions grant sport-scholarships. To me, this is a clear example of Dance’s central place in cultural and intellectual institutions in India.
In a ‘Whatsapp’ message, I asked her why she chose to focus on this dance form as opposed to any other and she responded by saying that she dances because it helps her remain connected or rooted to her family’s region, and is a response to Delhi’s ever-growing and ever-changing society. I thought this particularly interesting because, although the dance shown above is performed in the context of celebrating India’s heritage, it seems to also appreciate the interaction, or mixing, of styles and cultural practices that are not just from within India.
The male dancer is Roshnee’s friend, and he studies English Literature and is particularly keen on European dance styles. I think that the European and Classical Indian choreography works very well in the hybridity it displays. The dance doesn’t just highlight differences between a traditionally European dance style and a traditional Indian one, but emphasises similarities or synchronies that can exist between two supposedly very different art forms in the way the two dancers have coordinated their postures and movements. The dance showed me that although we often talk about the ‘homogenisation’ of culture which globalisation leads to there are cases where this sensationalised fear of a spreading ‘Western’ culture is ill-founded. Here, ‘Eastern’ and ‘Western’ traditions are working alongside each other, creating a new aesthetic – a new blend of culture – which is not just half- this and half- that (or ‘Westernised’ or ‘homogenised’) but an intertwined whole. Surely, the creation of new possibilities in cultural expression is a benefit of globalisation?
Finally, to give something back to the Indian students who had spent so long preparing the talent-show, the Edinburgh students we were travelling with rounded the evening off with this:
Even in Britain, dance and music seem to capture regional diversities, and both music and dance are being used in this video to express a cultural ‘uniqueness’ to ‘others’.
Punjab101: Dance and Nationalism at the Wagah Border
For anyone familiar with the innumerable cultural and racial stereotypes that exist today, India seems to be constructed by an overwhelming array of ‘iconic’ images such as yoga, spiritualism, its many religions and festivals, spicy foods, extreme poverty, the super rich, urbanisation and rapid population growth, the Taj Mahal, Gandhi, cricket, IT geeks, bindis and saris. My friends, too, often spontaneously list these features when imagining the country. However, this churning out of associations only fragments India beyond conceptualization. One only has to look at Slumdog Millionaire or Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom to see mainstream media’s tendency to depict extremes, and its ability to portray nations as distorted ‘others’.
It’s not only the media coming from the US or the UK, but the media within India that contributes to this, and, to a large extent, Bollywood also plays a crucial role in creating an exotic image of the country. With a hint of reluctance, I often have to deal with requests from friends here in London to show them ‘Indian dance moves’. Yet, what they are more often than not really referring to are Bollywood moves – seductive hip movements and head nods. Bollywood has become definitive of India’s aesthetic industry. Unfortunately, this is often at the expense of overwriting or appropriating classical and regional styles of dance and music. Bollywood is a very specific projection of a country and only one aspect of the many artistic practices and dance forms that represent India’s ancient heritage. It has come to dominate and capture the imagination of many though.
Below is a recent example of a typical dance routine and popular song which in English translates to ‘Come dance’:
However, in ‘College-on-wheels’ it became clear that dance was a major feature of youth culture in all its various styles, and Bollywood was not the sole source of inspiration or form of talent displayed throughout the week. The Delhi students were especially keen to celebrate their field trip ‘Punjabi style’ and not a single bus journey went by without our group dancing with teachers on India’s infamously risky roads. We were going to Punjab where a particular form of dance is a trademark of its strong regional ‘essence’. Bhangra is what I’m talking about, and as much as Bollywood has become representative of India in general, Bhangra is representative of the Punjab region in particular.
(KCL has a very good Bhangra team if I may say so myself – check it out if you don’t know what Bhangra is, and even if you do know what it is…check it out below anyway 😉 NB: it is adapted for the stage though)
Our first overnight train journey was to take us to Amritsar and I found it especially unsettling. Reeking of sweat like I’ve never reeked before, feet swollen, mosquito bites and carrying a heavy suitcase as well as TWO laptops given to us in our group of four, getting used to travelling on a humid train which chimes – no, chimes is too delicate a word to describe the trauma of being woken up at 3 a.m – a train that screeches intermittently throughout the night was no easy feat. However, our arrival in Amritsar was the highlight of the trip for me because it was the start of my integration with the Delhi students which compensated for the train journey. How did this occur? Through dance, of course. At the iconic Waghah border – the border between India and Pakistan, where nationalist feeling runs high – dance and music drew us all in, irrespective of our nationality.
We arrived at around 4pm but had to wait until sunset for the actual show-off between the Pakistani Rangers and the Indian Border Security Force. In the meantime, the Indian side of the border exerted its energies into making us chant ‘HINDUSTAN ZINDABAD’ (Long live India) whilst playing patriotic songs and encouraging different parts of the audience to shout the loudest. Whistles, drums, half a dozen Indian flags being passed through the crowd, clapping, jeering, and, of course, Bhangra surrounded me and for the first time since arriving in India I found myself admist the boys who were partying down like there’s no tomorrow (we had been kept separate for pastoral purposes). Thrown into this eclectic environment, I was exhilarated by the display of national pride – something which is only pompously shown in England on occasions such as the Olympics, Jubilee and the Royal Wedding. Music and dance made sentiment reach fever pitch and patriotism was infectious. I was drawn into chanting ‘Hindustan Zindabad!’ and ‘Jai Hind’ with a quick suppression of guilt that I was officially a British citizen.
Speaking to many students after the military display, they said they preferred to dance Bhangra rather than typical Bollywood moves because Bhangra was ‘true’ to the Indian spirit whilst Bollywood had become more ‘Westernised’. The strong presence of music and Bhangra at the Wagah Border, which celebrates being ‘Indian’ (or being ‘Pakistani’ if you are on the other side), helped to convert the tension between the two countries into something communal and light-hearted. Indian nationalism was something which I had never come across, (apart from in cricket matches), and the interplay between Punjabi Bhangra and nationalist celebration showed me how essential this regional dance is in understanding the Indian students’ affiliation to their country.
Punjab felt the partition of India most violently as many riots broke out when it was divided in two. Parts of it fell into the newly created Pakistan and families and religious groups were separated. Its regional dance, then, may compensate for the separation of communities by bringing people together, which I witnessed at the Wagah Border. Pakistan was just as lively as India, and, rather than emphasising perceived differences, the choreographed military rivalry on both sides only seemed to highlight similarities between the nations – that they can work together for a shared purpose. I realised that they were both using art forms to broadcast an image of their respective countries and cultures (and to show their military power), but, ironically, this image was of cooperative unity rather than separation. This gave me a new perspective on Indo-Pakistani relations.
To summarise this rather long post, I can say that dance is prominent everywhere in India. From Bollywood to Bhangra, Garba (Gujarat’s dance) to Odissi (Orissa’s) and even Disco and hip-hop, many forms of dance were represented on the trip, with some more strongly associated with ideas of authenticity and tradition than others. At the Wagah Border I saw how the Delhi students really valued their diverse ancestry from India’s different states and I’ll try and find a recording of their student performances in Punjab to show you how important dance and music are to the young people of India.
I hope you’ll remember this post next time you think Bollywood to be indicative of India’s cultural output, and that there is much more too it than just entertainment!
These images are a flavour of my experience at the Wagah border:
Identity = questions, questions, questions.
Arriving in a new place (or old, if returning after a long period away) usually means one thing: lots of questions. Although you may want to sleep off the side-effects of travel, arrival often entails dealing with people’s curiosity.
Meeting other international students and Delhi students at the Delhi University guest house and on-board the train was physically, as well as mentally, exhausting but, at the time, I only put it down to jet-lag and a sleepless flight. However, it wasn’t the physical tiredness that was new to me but the mental adjustment which I had to go through when answering questions based on ‘Who I am’: “Where do you come from? (does this mean where do I live, where my parents are from, or where I study?!); What is your family’s surname (surnames play an important role in India in indicating caste, religion or regional ethnicity); What language do you speak?; Why do you not speak Hindi?”, and so on.
A few of us on our induction tour of Delhi University.
I wasn’t offended but it did mean I had to redefine myself in a group of strangers as soon as I had landed which was disorientating. Up until this point, I did not have any trouble with my identity as I’ve usually travelled with a group of known individuals where I know my place in this familiar ‘community’ – a stable group outside the familiarity of ‘Home’. When holidaying in India, I visit Gujarat where I can speak Gujarati and am surrounded with family members where my identity is never questioned as I’m automatically considered ‘One of them’ due to surname. My ‘Britishness’ is never really problematic (although it has been mocked many times!) because my name, the Gujarati language and my family ties supersede, what my family consider to be, just my country of residence and just the type of passport I hold. My English education and surroundings; a different, ‘Western’ society; and the ensuing hybrid identity have never triggered questions or wiped out my essential ‘Indianness’, (even if these factors have allowed locals to tease my accented Gujarati and my pitiful fear of lizards and mosquitoes).
However, finding myself in another part of India was just as daunting/unfamiliar as being in a country that I’ve had no exposure to at all. And the reason for this is because India is not just a large homogeneous entity. There is no such thing as ‘the Indian people’, ‘Indian culture’ or ‘the Indian language’. Many have said that it is more appropriate to consider India as made up of many ‘Indias’; an amalgamation of cultures rather than possessing an unified culture. If that is the case, then what seemingly holds the country together is the coincidence that these diverse cultures are found closely side-by-side within a shared geographical land-mass.
Flying kites for a festival called Uttarayan – celebrating the decline of winter – is a particularly Gujarati way to celebrate. I was surprised to learn from my Delhi friends that this is uncommon elsewhere in India!
The string is glass coated so that you can have a sort of kite-war – if you cut down someone else’s kite you win. This also means your hands can get cuts and sores.
I was completely de-familiarised in my new surroundings, not just because I was away from my home in London where I’ve lived for twenty years, but because I was also distanced from another ‘home’, the perceived land of my origins, the homeland of my parents. India was a country that I thought was always there, readily a part of me and available if I chose to embrace that aspect of my identity if I wished to. This pride was thwarted when I realised how little I knew of the other 27 states besides Gujarat and their further regional subdivisions, and so couldn’t really call myself fully Indian. I had gone from totalising India and taking my experience of Gujarat as the norm, to being shocked into a particularly raw openness which then allowed me to experience the cultural nuances and particularities that exist all throughout this heterogeneous country afresh.
Unlike the students of Caucasian, East Asian, or African-Caribbean appearance, I just did not look ‘foreign’ and so was often mistaken for a home ‘Indian’ student, until, that is, I opened my mouth and started to speak in my ‘Norf London’ accent. That’s when the questions started rolling in. Once, I even got asked if I was an Anglo-Indian. I automatically said ”Yes” because I heard the word Anglo and Indian together and assumed it meant British-Indian. However, since coming home and studying a course entitled ‘Colonial novel and British India’ (which I was motivated to choose because of this trip) I learnt that the term could refer to:
A) a person of mixed Indian and English ancestry
or
B) the name that was given to British officials (and their families) living in India during Empire, and which now refers to the remaining ‘white’ community in India.
Well, that made me particularly self-conscious of how categories or labels are used to define, and contain such different lifestyles and individualities into controllable, static groupings. How can terms like ‘Anglo-Indian’, ‘English’, ‘British’, ‘Indian, ‘Brown, ‘White, ‘Black’, ‘Western’ or the countless other labels we tick off when we are filling out the ‘Equality opportunities’ part of a form construct our identities? Does my command of English at the expense of Indian languages make me any less ‘Indian’? Do I need to call myself something else if so and, indeed, WHY do I need to call myself anything at all? Can’t Payal just do? (And on that note, I think this blog on ‘Questions’ has found a good point to end on before I have an existential crisis).
Delhi airport
This is a quick post, and quite an embarrassing one for me, but I thought it might be useful to reveal some of the prejudices or preconceptions I held albeit unconsciously.
Google images
It had been a long flight with no sleep, and stepping out into the humidity of Delhi wasn’t helpful. In the duty free I decided to buy some chocolate and in front of me were two very adorable looking old men. Well, ‘white’ men if we are going to be precise. Of course I wasn’t shocked to see ‘white’ people in the capital city’s airport but what they were saying did throw me (quite a lot, I must admit). Both of them were speaking fluent, if not accented, Hindi, and I did feel a sense of shame at being unable to speak it myself despite having grown up hearing it spoken around me. These men, with their beige chinos, trilby hats and briefcases, reminded me of old colonial officers; relics of the British Empire. Coming into Delhi, I was presented with (what I’ve considered) a sign of the enduring encounter between Britain and India which goes back to the late 16th century.
Whilst I’m writing this blog about going from England to India as a British-Asian, I also have to try and remember that these men seemed to be products of empire as much as I am. The reason I find myself in England in the first place is because of Britain’s colonial legacy which made it possible for my grandparents to immigrate to it from its ex-colony during the commonwealth. I was just shocked, however, to see that a bit of India had such a strong hold the other way around. Having picked up English as my dominant tongue, it was actually pleasantly surprising to see the effect of empire on another, older generation where they seemed almost as comfortable speaking Hindi as I do English. It made me aware of the two way relationship that is, to this day, perceptible in both nations.
(For a brief outline of Britain’s imperial history click here)
(The telegraph also has interesting images of British India – particularly no. 1 and 11 as this is what I have in mind when I mean ‘colonial officer’.)
What is Gyanodaya?
In September 2013 I had the amazing opportunity to journey through different cities in India on a train (called the Gyanodaya express) alongside 900 Delhi University students and around one hundred UK students from the University of Edinburgh and King’s College London. I want to reflect on the trip now – something which was hard to do immediately after it because of how exhausting and hectic the programme was. I want to point out that this wasn’t the mental or physical exhaustion of a fresh-faced traveller, experiencing an Asian metropolis for the first time; I considered myself prepared and preempted with knowledge from my Indian heritage and from having visited the country thrice before during my childhood. I thought I knew what to expect and so had a stronger footing than some of the other UK students…but it turns out that India can surprise in many ways.
Only one week long, Delhi University aimed to give Delhites (a term I learnt from my Delhi friends, who enlightened me when I sheepishly called them ‘people from Delhi’) and international students a broad insight into the many different aspects of the Punjab – a state that is at once an example of India’s modernity as well as its traditional agricultural and spiritual history. At the start of the trip we were informed that it would be an ‘experiential based learning exercise’, and that ‘Gyanodaya’ – the name of the specially hired train and the official name of the trip – referred to Mahatma Gandhi’s ideal of learning about one’s country by living it. In Hindi, ‘gyan’ means knowledge and ‘daya’ roughly translates to virtue, good emotion or kindness. The compound word created captures the idea of intellect paired with emotional development, as the organiser of the programme told us at our induction talk. So although learning about India’s agriculture and economy played a part in ‘College on Wheels’, what was at the heart of the trip’s philosophy was to encourage a sense of individual growth whether that be confidence in travelling alone with strangers, cross-cultural interaction or a religious/spiritual understanding of Sikhism. (If you want more information on the ideology behind the trip, last year’s outline was sent to us and explained the Gyanodaya Philosophy well.)
For me though, ‘College on Wheels’ made me reassess my sense of self. Things I used as reference points to construct my ‘identity’ had to be renegotiated – language, religion, ethnicity as well as everyday cultural practices such as eating and dancing threw my pre-conceived notions of what it means to be an ‘Indian’, a ‘Westerner’ and an English speaker into disarray. (I’m using inverted commas here just to show how messy these terms are, and can never really be fixed in meaning.) Over the course of this blog, I’ll analyse some of the unique experiences I’ve had that have been completely out of my comfort zone and in doing so I’ll hopefully be able to probe my own global identity (if, that is, such a thing really exists).
College on Wheels 